


Walkies With Weiss

by Kiiratam



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dog Walking, F/F, Fluff, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23679481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: Weiss has a new room-mate, and already he's making requests of her. But she's only too happy to help.He is, after all, A Good Boy.Takes place the morning after the end of Volume 2 (right afterBees in Bed: Yang's Nightmare). (My BMBLB fic index)
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 12
Kudos: 91





	Walkies With Weiss

Weiss woke up from a kiss on her cheek. And to the realization that she was still tired.

  
Another kiss. It wasn't even fully light yet. Couldn't this wait until her alarm went off? 

  
Her alarm.

  
She'd forgotten to set any.

  
Weiss bolted up in bed, nearly throwing Zwei to the floor. Of _course_ no one else was up yet. If _she'd_ forgotten to set an alarm - they were all going to be late -

  
\- Why was she so sore?

  
Oh.

  
Yesterday. White Fang, train crash, Grimm in Vale...

  
They were still supposed to be on their excursion with Doctor Oobleck. Weiss wondered how that being cut short was going to affect their grade.

  
Grabbing her scroll, she wrote a memo to ask Doctor Oobleck about that. Out of habit, she checked the time. RWBY was supposed to be starting team practice now. She glanced out the window, and the rainfall finally registered, instead of just being background noise. That explained some of her confusion over what time it was.

  
Zwei whined at her, sitting at the foot of her bed. He had just the biggest gray eyes, and he looked so _sad_.

  
Putting her scroll down, Weiss schooched over to scratch him behind the ear. Dogs liked that, right? She hoped he was okay from yesterday. But with everything that had happened, Zwei _must_ have an active Aura. And he didn't _seem_ hurt. Weiss wasn't sure what to look for; their first aid classes hadn't covered canines.

  
Zwei accepted a few scratches, then hopped off of her bed. Trotting over to the door, he pawed at it.

  
Oh.

  
Getting out of bed herself, Weiss looked at Ruby. Who had apparently fallen into bed before she finished changing, because she was still wrapped in her cloak. And her blanket, and she'd put one pillow on top of her head, so her face was barely visible between them. Weiss wasn't sure if she _could_ wake Ruby up - physically, because she was blocking off the outside world quite effectively - or emotionally, because Ruby just look perfectly cozy - and yesterday had been exhausting for all of them. Even if Zwei was Ruby's dog.

  
But Zwei was also Yang's dog, and Weiss knew that she was a light sleeper, so she'd feel less bad about waking Yang up. Weiss turned around.

  
Yang's bunk was empty.

  
Weiss looked up at the ceiling, making some internal calculations, weighing the odds on Yang having just gotten up to go to the bathroom, or to breakfast. Without taking Zwei with her.

  
The odds were pretty low.

  
Weiss checked Blake's bed. And, to Weiss' _complete and utter lack of surprise_ , there was Yang, with Blake sleeping on top of her. 

  
Shielding her face from their - she didn't even know what to call it - Weiss headed for the closet she shared with Ruby. Zwei pawed at the door again.

  
In her quietest voice - she didn't want to wake Yang up, and have to interact with _whatever_ was happening in Blake's bed - Weiss told Zwei, "I'm going to get changed, and then we can go out."

  
She swore Zwei sighed, but looking over her shoulder, he had just sat down by the door, waiting for her. As quickly as she could, Weiss threw off her nightgown and changed into her workout clothes. Even if they weren't going to have team practice, they were quick to change into, and she didn't want to keep Zwei waiting. Weiss considered her options, and settled on just grabbing her umbrella, instead of digging her raincoat out, and having to deal with the drips from that. Her workout clothes would dry quickly anyway.

  
Sitting down on her bed again, she pulled her shoes on. Which just left her hair. Weiss sighed. It would take too long to do anything with it. No one would care if her hair was down. Yang certainly never got anyone telling her to put her hair up.

  
Then again, Weiss was convinced that Yang's hair was magical. It never seemed to get in her face, or need to be tied up, and it always did what she wanted and - 

  
Forcing her tired mind to focus, Weiss stood up and crossed to the door. Zwei stood up, and glanced up at her. Did he have a leash? She hadn't seen one - and it wasn't like he was wearing a collar.

  
"Zwei, you'll come when I call?"

  
He sat down precisely, body rigid, eyes forward, reminding Weiss of - what had Winter called it? 'Standing at attention'?

  
Weiss decided to take that as a 'yes'. She grabbed her brush and gave her hair a few strokes - just enough to calm it down, not nearly enough to tame it. Zwei relaxed out of his rigid stance, and came to his feet again.

  
Gathering her umbrella, room key and scroll, Weiss opened the door. To her surprise, Zwei didn't immediately charge ahead. But she guessed he couldn't open the door at the top of the stairs or call the elevator. After a moment's thought, she added a hand towel to her collection of items. Zwei would have wet feet. Hopefully he wouldn't wallow in puddles. 

  
...He was _Ruby's_ dog. Ruby jumped into puddles with both boots. Weiss decided that if Zwei had those particular bad habits, she could make Zwei wait downstairs, or even just outside the room, while she got more towels.

  
After closing and locking the door, Weiss tucked her key and scroll into her pockets. "Stairs or elevator?" She asked, looking down at her companion.

  
He hung his head as he walked, and started dragging his feet.

  
"Agreed." Weiss also didn't particularly feel up to three flights of stairs. Or down. Not even how Yang did it, which was to just vault the railing and fall. Every time, Weiss was slightly horrified that she'd clip her head on something and just crumble bonelessly to the bottom...

  
She shook herself. Yang just liked showing off. And when Weiss had gently suggested that, since everyone knew Yang _could_ do it, the jump wasn't impressive anymore, Yang had just said that she did it to charge her Semblance. Even if her grin had said that she was _also_ showing off.

  
Besides, it was _Yang_. She wasn't totally invincible - Pyrrha had beaten her in a match (but that was _Pyrrha_ ) - but Yang was pretty close to unbeatable. Being able to return the enemy's strongest hits, only even stronger? It was nice, simple, and ridiculously powerful.

  
And she didn't have to work at it. It just _was_.

  
That was the most annoying part. Weiss knew, intellectually, that it wasn't really that simple. Zwei stretched up and hit the elevator call button. But Weiss had been practicing, and practicing, and practicing with her glyphs, and she wasn't getting anywhere. It was immensely aggravating, _knowing_ that she had the Schnee Family Semblance, and only being able to tap into the most elementary functions of it.

  
At least Ruby was helping. Not with summoning, obviously - the elevator door chimed open, and Weiss and Zwei stepped inside. "Ground floor, please," and he hit the 1F button - but helping Weiss think about how to use her glyphs. It was helpful, being able to just talk with her, and explain how glyphs worked, and then Ruby would ask a dumb question, and Weiss would correct her, and then she'd ask another question, and Weiss would think that it was dumb at first, and then she'd take a moment to think it over and wonder 'what if that does work?' And that would lead to her making a list of techniques to attempt during their next practice - which, even if they didn't all work out _precisely_ as imagined, kept practice from becoming repetitive. They still needed to work on refining the combination of their Semblances. Ruby just wound up going too fast to steer. Of course, Weiss wasn't sure how she steered in the first place. They'd probably have to figure that out first.

  
The elevator door opened, and Zwei trotted out, Weiss trailing after him. No one else was really out and about that she could see. Though, given yesterday's events, and that the green could currently be more accurately termed 'the reflecting pool'...

  
It had rained a great deal over the night, apparently. Weiss wasn't sure when the storms had started. She only had vague impressions of thunder during the night. Though they were all mixed up with dreams (or memories) of the train crash. It was logical that her unconscious mind would muddle the two up, even if she resented the resulting confusion. She hated waking up and being disoriented; it never seemed to bode well for the rest of the day.

  
But Weiss wasn't going to let that stop her. She was going to take this time to reorganize herself, and recover, and tomorrow they could get back to their routine. Maybe Doctor Oobleck would have some make-up work for RWBY, something to teach them what they might have learned on their expedition. Weiss had really only thought of him as a history teacher, not as a Huntsman. But there was more to him than she'd thought. She opened the front door, sticking her umbrella outside and opening it. Weiss took shelter underneath it, and Zwei joined her with some reluctance.

  
"We really ought to have an indoor dog park."

  
Zwei let out a short bark of agreement.

  
"I'll follow you."

  
He started forward, aiming at the nearest lamp-post. Weiss didn't think that there were any other dogs on Beacon campus, but it was entirely possible someone had a little toy dog. But really, Zwei had an active Aura, just like all the other students. And the other important thing about Huntresses and Huntsmen was a willingness to put oneself between the Grimm and others. Which Zwei certainly had. Really, he might not ever qualify for an actual license, but he was more combat capable than Jaune. Why _not_ have a dedicated, on-campus accommodations for non-human Huntresses and Huntsmen?

  
After a moment, Weiss went back and edited her thought. Non-human, non-Faunus. Non-humanoid? Weiss would have to ask Blake, and see if there was a preferred term to refer to both of them. Hopefully that wouldn't spark a fight. Weiss was _trying_ not to be confrontational, and actually think about human/Faunus relations. Which involved a lot of listening to Blake. And coming face to face with reams of data about everything the Schnee Dust Company - her family company - had done to the Faunus. Weiss tried not to be defensive about it - Blake could just be infuriating. Provocative. Like she was trying to get Weiss angry.

  
Weiss raised her eyes as Zwei finally completed his inspection of the lamp-post and raised his rear leg. Zwei deserved some privacy. 

  
The whole situation was complicated. Very complicated. Mainly because Blake kept pointing out exactly how much Weiss had _personally_ benefited from the Schnee Dust Company's exploitation of Faunus workers. Not all the time - but frequently enough that Weiss couldn't forget it.

  
The really frustrating thing about Blake was that she was right. It pained Weiss to admit that, but Blake had routed Weiss pretty thoroughly on all fronts. Now that Weiss was meeting Faunus who weren't in her father's employ, she wasn't able to maintain her mental picture of them as filthy, lazy, money-leeching slackers. Even Sun - who had catalyzed these 'discussions' with Blake in the first place - had good points. He was loyal to his friends, funny (even if it wasn't always her brand of humor), and he cared about his appearance (even if he had odd standards of every-day dress). And he had good taste in friends.

  
More than that, Blake was willing to just throw - sometimes literally - information at her. She had a litany of examples of anti-Faunus sentiment, and could back that up with documentation. Court cases, scientific studies, memoirs, systematic discrimination in legal codes... And she was always willing to talk about it. Or rant, at least. Blake could talk for hours about how this court case de facto endorsed anti-Faunus discrimination, while being _technically_ within the letter of the law. Or how this year's reported SDC earnings coincided with a statistically significant increase in mining accidents, and increased expense to Atlesian health care. And so on and so forth.

  
Weiss didn't like it. Having someone else exhume skeletons from her family's closet. Not even skeletons. Fresh corpses. And Weiss was becoming increasingly conscious that she'd been willfully ignoring the smell, so to speak.

  
Zwei nudged her leg.

  
She looked down at him. "Are you finished?"

  
He barked and bounced, looking at the next lamp-post. At least it wasn't raining too hard at the moment. And it was falling straight down, so both of them were still fairly dry - apart from her shoes and Zwei's feet. Weiss checked that her towel was still slung over her shoulder, and the two of them started towards the next lamp-post. She hoped that they wouldn't have to inspect _all_ of them.

  
Weiss fell back into her reflections. She was trying to understand Blake. And it seemed like Blake was genuinely trying to share more. Really, that she was doing that and also dragging Weiss towards a more complete understanding of Faunus/human relations - it was impressive. Weiss just wished she understood what was happening between Blake and Yang. Because it was like they had sat down together, and written out a list of everything that people in a relationship do, and then deliberately only did half of them.

  
When she'd left the room, they'd been sleeping in the same bed. That was a thing couples did. Or - the little Ruby in her head pointed out - sisters did. But despite Ruby's comments, Weiss had never woken up and found Yang and Ruby in the same bed. She tried to imagine crawling into Winter's bed after having a nightmare - back when Winter had still lived in the manor, of course - and the idea of it was just absurd.

  
Weiss wondered if she should ask Winter about the situation in her next letter. She'd made oblique allusions, of course. But Winter hadn't been appraised of everything. What would Weiss even write? 

>   
>  'Beloved sister, it has come to my attention, that contrary to my recommendations (as per Von Schliemann's _Study of Combat Team Dynamics and Conclusions from the Same_ ), two of my team mates are engaged in intimate relations (though I cannot, of course, deliver a complete assessment of how intimate their relations are, suffice to say that I am convinced that they exceed recommended parameters for ideal emotional distances within a combat unit), and my team leader (Miss Rose, of whom I have spoken of before in these epistles) is unwilling to enact an Atlesian mode of discipline in general, to say nothing of imposing it in this specific circumstance, where, as one of the intimate participants is her half-sister (Miss Xiao Long, as you, of course, recall), the situation is already and egregiously in breach of standard Atlesian processes. Given the circumstances, I am unsure how to proceed, and it is thus in my time of need, that I, as I have so often been given to do in the past, request your input on the situation, because I have severe doubts as to our on-going effectiveness as a team.'

  
But that last part wasn't even true. Even if RWBY hadn't managed to stop the train, they'd undermined the White Fang plot, Torchwick was in custody, and the breach in Vale's security had been remedied.

  
Not that yesterday hadn't left Weiss with qualms. For one, she'd personally lost a fight. That White Fang officer had been larger than her (but so were almost all Grimm) and more experienced than her (she was still a student, and he a hardened terrorist), but she'd still _lost_. Weiss could make all the excuses she wanted, and justifications, and explanations, but that wasn't the important part.

  
But she'd helped Blake get to Torchwick. Her sacrifice had been worth it. Weiss knew that, intellectually, but she was having trouble removing her own pain from her mental calculus. 

  
It had taken three lamp-posts, but Zwei was finally content. He'd turned back to their dormitory, looking up at her and wagging his whole back end. Despite the accumulating dampness, he was, on the whole, _adorable_. Weiss felt an overwhelming need to give him a hug, but restrained herself. She could do that when his feet weren't muddy. They started back. The wind was picking up, blowing rain under the cover of the umbrella.

  
The obvious solution, of course, was to not lose in the future. She'd have to keep working on her swordwork, and probably more importantly in this particular case, her footwork. Yang or Sun would be good opponents to practice against, even if neither of them was as grapple-focused as the White Fang officer had been. But they both relied on closing to short distances, and Sun did incorporate binds and traps at those ranges, and Yang wasn't opposed to using throws in appropriate circumstances. Weiss also might want to talk to Pyrrha. Not only did she had a lot of experience facing a wide variety of weapons and styles, but she had been tutoring Jaune, and he was improving rapidly. And Professor Goodwitch, in a lecture about defeating shields, had emphasized getting the shield out of line, which meant either feints or binds. Which meant that Pyrrha, because she was so skilled, would be experienced at _resisting_ binds, which, naturally, operated under the same physical principles as grapples, and that was what the White Fang officer had exploited to turn the fight around.

  
And that had been her first real fight against another person. There had been the fight against Torchwick's stolen Paladin - but that had been all of team RWBY. Not just Weiss, alone against someone who wanted very much to kill her.

  
Weiss shivered. She'd lost, but she hadn't died. It wasn't a victory, but she'd have more chances for those. That was the important part. And if her enemies were going to be idiotic enough to give her a chance to learn from her mistakes... Weiss was going to get better. But she should hurry back inside. Her workout clothes were very breathable, but she could catch a chill in them. Especially since she'd been prioritizing holding the umbrella over Zwei, not herself. Her hair was unpleasantly moist - not quite dripping, but cold and clammy against her neck.

  
She pulled the door open for Zwei, and stepped inside. While holding the door open with her foot, she closed her umbrella and shook it off outside as Zwei shook himself. Leaning her umbrella against the wall, Weiss pulled the (slightly damp) hand towel off of her shoulder and crouched down in front of Zwei. "Paw, please."

  
He sat down and raised one paw for her to clean.

  
"I'm loaning you my towel today, but you need to get some of your own." Weiss made sure to clean between his cute little toes, and patted the soft pads of his paw dry with the driest section of the towel.

  
Zwei whined a bit as he lowered one paw and raised the other one.

  
A thought occurred to Weiss. "If you come with me to talk to Doctor Oobleck about make-up work for our trip, I'll buy you a set of towels. The two of you seemed to get along quite well."

  
He barked in agreement.

  
"Back legs." Weiss talked as she dried. "We can look at colors and patterns, and you can pick out one you like." She paused. "Are your initials ZXL, or ZR? Or XLZ? ZXLR?"

  
Zwei looked over his shoulder at her, his head cocked and ears unsure.

  
"I'll have to ask Ruby." She folded her towel neatly over her arm, and, after giving Zwei a few scratches behind his ear, stood up. "Let's get you breakfast. Hopefully every else is awake by now." Weiss hoped she'd managed to avoid the Yang/Blake/bed situation, if only because she was still trying to figure out what she felt. Apart from embarrassment.

  
Zwei barked happily, and led the way back to the elevator. Outside, Weiss heard distant thunder. It seemed the storm was going to continue.


End file.
